C3's Yard Management and Dock Scheduling Blog

'Switching' the Mentality - Getting Switchers on Board with Yard Management

Over the years, I've been on dozens of yard management deployments in varying types of operations around the world. One factor that has often caused some trouble is the 'buy in' from the switcher drivers in the yard.

"We know how to run our yard"

I've heard this quote from switcher drivers during go-lives way more than I care to remember - and up to a certain extent, it's true. Switchers, shunters, jockeys, whatever you call them, are your resources which are in the best position to manage your yard. They take pride in managing the trailers and keeping the yard organized and the dock doors filled with the appropriate trailers.

So how exactly can a business get their switchers to hop onto the yard management system (YMS) band wagon and actually become an asset in their system deployment rather than a hindrance? I've come to realize that there are three factors that can influence how your switchers will contribute (or not) to the implementation of a YMS.

1.     Show Switchers How YMS Makes Their Jobs Easier

Switchers are often very concerned with the arrival of a yard management system. They feel their jobs are at risk or that Big Brother Boss wants to pry into their work. This often couldn't be further from reality.  Many businesses opt for implementing a YMS system because their operations has grown to a point where managing the yard using classic methods simply doesn't cut it anymore.  Paper-pencil, magnet boards, spreadsheets, all these methods prove themselves to be insufficient. The point a business needs to make with its switchers is that they are implementing the system to make them and the warehouse more efficient by automating some or all of the yard business processes. Switchers can then concentrate on the core of their jobs and perform to their maximum potential and do what they do best - drive trucks.

2.     Build and Design The Solution with The Switchers

Who's going to be impacted most by the implementation of a YMS in your operation? Transport personnel, receiving/shipping personnel and switchers. We often see transport, receiving and shipping personnel involved at all levels of the project, from the initial scoping to the solution design, but we very seldom see switchers in these meetings. Well, they are probably the people whose jobs are impacted the most in this project and should absolutely be included when defining the scope and future processes. A user that 'owns' the system is definitely more likely to be motivated and excited about the new implementation. This motivation will trickle down on other members of the team and make for a much smoother transition. Not only that, switchers know best how their yard is maintained. I've sat in meetings trying to define 'what goes where' in the yard and no one in the operations can tell me precisely. Switchers have a better chance of getting things right the first time.

3.     Listen to Shunter Feedback When Rolling Out

Regardless of how well you plan and setup your system, there will be some tweaking needed when rolling out. Trailers will be sent to the wrong areas of the yard and the first people to realise this will be the switchers/shunters. Listen to them. They have relevant input and they provide it in real-time as the issue is occurring.  It’s then very easy to adjust the configuration of a system right on the spot. Next time this situation occurs, shunters will notice that the feedback they provided was implemented in the system and they'll feel like they are gaining control over their yard, not losing it to a new system.

In the end, the successful deployment of any major piece of software in the supply chain requires the involvement of many different departments.  Like in a real chain, if one of these links is weak or breaks, you run the risk of losing control over what you're attempting to achieve. It's important to have switchers involved as much as possible in the implementation of yard management software and if you do, you're already that much closer to a successful deployment.

Get Started with The Right Product

Now that you know a few things about how to implement a yard management project, the next step is to select the right software product.  To find out why top companies have selected C3 Yard Smart, register for a free WebEx demonstration.

Photo is courtesy of Biglorryblog.

KeHE Distributors Rolls out C3 Reservations

KeHE Distributors, a leading distributor of more than 40,000 natural and specialty food items, has deployed C3 Reservations in nine distribution centers throughout the US. 

Dock Scheduling with a Rapid ROI 

When KeHE Distributors decided to improve their inbound appointment scheduling processes, they had several key criteria by which to evaluate the different solutions on the market. 

"We needed to improve the productivity of our schedulers, streamline our receiving of carriers at the facilities and provide better visibility on the status of purchase orders throughout the enterprise", said Craig Turner Vice President of Distribution Operations at KeHe Distributors.    "Our industry is very competitive and we needed a system to be functionally rich and easy to deploy at a cost that reflected our situation."

C3 Reservations on-demand software fit the bill.  On-demand software reduces a company's total cost of ownership by eliminating on-site servers and the associated IT costs.  Furthermore, C3 Reservation's volume based cost model means companies pay for a solution that reflects the size of their operation - not the size of the software.

C3 Reservations optimizes the receiving and shipping process by scheduling appointments to the available capacity in the warehouse.  Operators can simply apply relevant constraints to ensure that the warehouse receives a balanced schedule that streamlines the operation.   C3 Reservations reduces phone calls, faxes and manual emails that are involved with the traditional back and forth of appointment scheduling.

KeHE piloted the application at one of their busiest warehouse as a proof of concept, after which they rolled out 8 additional sites in a period of 4 weeks and have recognized significant savings.  "We have increased the productivity of our schedulers by 50 percent and our receiving at the warehouses has been streamlined and simplified.  We now have a standardized appointment scheduling process that is uniform across the business.", says Turner.

"C3 Reservations is a robust application that responds to industry requirements.  Companies are looking for an easy to implement, low cost appointment scheduling solution that doesn't require involvement from their IT departments.", remarks Greg Braun Vice President of Business Development at C3 Solutions.  "C3 is committed to providing high quality On-Demand software for areas of the supply chain that have traditionally been overlooked.  The success experienced by companies such as KeHE demonstrates that there is a legitimate need for these types of solutions."

About KeHE Distributers

KeHE Distributors is a leading distributor of more than 40,000 natural and specialty food items that fit the lifestyle of today's consumer.  KeHE distributes its huge product line--including specialty, gourmet, natural and organic, Kosher, international and ethnic food products--to retail grocery stores of all sizes in 49 states as well as Mexico and the Caribbean.   KeHE, an employee-owned company, was founded in 1952 by Arthur Kehe.

Learn More about C3 Reservations

If you would like to learn more about how C3 Reservations can increase your schedulers productivity and increase your warehouse throughput, please contact us for a free web demonstration.

Is Yard Management Important? Part 2

In my last post I indicated some of the tangible benefits associated with yard management as a means of answering the question "Is Yard Management Important?".  These benefits are real and sufficient to justify a project by themselves.  However these benefits are only half of the equation. 

Better Information the Key to Improved Operations

Information is the life blood of every business and I am sure that your business knows the important KPI's from the WMS e.g. cases picked per hour etc. or the PoS system can provide the average basket size of every shopper and so on.

But does your business know the KPI's for the yard operation or how the yard truly affects the rest of the operation? If not, then you may not know that a problem exists. You could be throwing good money away and have no idea.

For example; one of the metrics that retailers use is on-time delivery of trailers to the stores. In particular this metric is crucial during peak seasons. If product cannot get to the stores in time sales are lost. Furthermore if work crews are idle at the store waiting for the trailers, productivity is lost.

One of our customers was convinced that their warehouse was running at capacity during their seasonal peaks before they implemented a yard management system. All of their previous statistics showed that trailers were being brought to the doors on time but yet the warehouse was not able to load the trailers in a timely manner; this was a major issue for the retailer and seemingly not a yard problem.

After implementing Yard Smart the warehouse throughput increased by 12.4% during the seasonal peak. Further analysis showed that the increase in productivity wasn't achieved by processing more trailers, but by processing the right trailers. The inventory visibility that the yard management system provided enabled the operation to prioritize the unloading of trailers that contained inventory required for outbound loads. Also, dock productivity was increased by avoiding the congestion caused by handling inventory which was not needed for the outbound operation.

Bottom line - more products were shipped and sold with the same amount of resources.

So back to my original question: "Is yard management important?"  As some of you have commented on part 1 of my posting, this is a contextual question.  There needs to be a minimum operational volume to be able to justify a specialized solution for the yard.  I wish I could tell you what that volume is, but this also is very dependant on the specific operation.  That being said I hope you agree that the information provided by a yard management system is important and is essential in improving your supply chain operation.

Find the Unexpected Returns

If you would like to get more information on how other companies have gained unexpected benefits from a yard management system, please download our case study on a major European retailer and their experience with yard management or contact us for a demonstration of our yard management system - C3 Yard Smart.

Is Yard Management Important? Part 1

Is yard management important? It is a question that I ask on many occasions and, depending on whom you ask, you could get a response similar to the ones below:

1. Yard Management is not important enough to invest the time/money/resource in.
2. Yard Management is important but it is not a priority at the moment, we have too much else to do.
3. Yard Management is probably more important than we know, we just can't prove it to the powers that be.
4. Yard Management is vital; we could not run our business without it.

So, I decided to write this blog and ask you some questions to see if yard management is actually important or not.

Given our current economic context, every business that has a supply chain operation has looked at the warehouse operation and transportation fleet to see where costs can be saved and/or efficiencies improved. How many of these companies have looked at the yard in the same way?  Not too many in my opinion.  Why is that?

Yard Management is the invisible link between the warehouse or cross-dock and the transportation fleet.  It is the last "yard", so to speak, between these two operations and unfortunately is not always an integral part of a supply chain operation.

Now, if I told you that there is money to be saved by implementing yard management you would immediately think "of course he would say that, he sells yard management" which is a fair point.  But let me give you some food for thought.

Benefits and Payback - "what is the ROI?"

To be honest, this is the toughest question to answer because every business is different.  But, there are a number of things that should be considered when looking at ROI.

Shunter costs: i.e. fuel, maintenance, lease costs, and the driver(s).

Do you know what you spend on this?  What would a 13% or 22% saving be to your operation?  What would the impact be to your business if you could get 2-3 more moves an hour/per shunter?  Yard management has proven to improve shunter efficiency by 29% to 38%.  What impact would this have on your company's bottom line?

Trailer utilization: how quickly can you ‘turn' a trailer from inbound to loaded and ready for dispatch?

How much time does it take for your business to gate-in and gate-out a trailer, 4-5 minutes or more?  What would you do if this could be 20-30 seconds?  How many trailers could you eliminate from your operation?  Would you need to rent/lease trailers for peak trading periods?  Yard management and dock scheduling could reduce the number of trailers your business needs to meet today's operational requirements by 3% - 11%.  How much could you save?

All of the above are immediate, quantifiable and tangible benefits.  Real money!

However, I believe the above is only half of the benefits available when implementing yard management. In my next posting I will discuss some of the success stories that companies have had by extending visibility past the four walls of the warehouse.  These benefits are usually substantial and are often difficult to predict.

Judge for Yourself

In the meantime if you would would like to have a demonstration of how a yard management system could provide value in your operation.  Please contact us for a brief web demonstration of C3 Yard Smart.

 

 

Yard Management - The Rodney Dangerfield of the Supply Chain

I recently attended the C3 European User Group meeting and I have to say it was a great opportunity to hear about the challenges facing yard operators from all sorts of different industries.  While many varied topics were discussed there seemed to be a re-occurring sentiment that presented itself:  that people who manage yards don't feel they are given the respect and support that other operating areas of their companies receive.  Now, at first, I found this somewhat trivial and even amusing but the more I thought about it the more it seemed to be a legitimate concern.

It is safe to say that nobody builds a yard.  Companies build warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturing plants, cross docks - but no one builds a yard.  The yard is a piece of real estate that is included with all of these facilities as a necessary element to support the buildings - just like the employee parking lot.  In the perfect world trailers arrive, they are brought to a dock door, they are loaded or unloaded and then they leave.  The important business is done within the four walls!

With this perspective it becomes easier to understand why yard managers often feel like the forgotten "step sister" of their operation.  So what needs to happen to resolve this predicament?  How can we improve the profile of yard management in the supply chain and ultimately add more value to the operation? 

I don't think there is one right answer to these questions,  however, I can outline some of the best practices that I have seen some of our customers implement that are  very successful.

3 Steps to Better Understanding the Importance of Yard Management in your Operation

1.       Clearly define the yard processes.  While this may seem obvious the key word here is clearly.  I distinctly remember visiting a prospective customer to better understand their yard processes.  I was expecting to see a typical simple process flow diagram but, to my surprise, the yard processes spanned the entire wall.  It was clearly understood how each distribution function affected the yard and what operations were at risk if the yard  failed.

2.       Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI's).  Examples of important KPIs are, the time it takes a trailer to be brought to a door once it has been requested by the warehouse; the percentage of trailers that leave on time from the warehouse on their outbound trips; total number of trailer moves performed by driver by shift; trailer utilization etc..  Defining KPI's and then continuing to measure them will help improve the visibility, and importance, that the yard plays in the operation.

3.       Allocate sole responsibility for the operation of the yard.  Without a doubt, all of our customers that have a dedicated team in charge of the operation and performance of the yard have experienced superior results.  That being said if your operation is not significant enough to warrant a dedicated team or person, there needs to be one team or person that is responsible for the yard.  Again this may seem obvious; however, sometimes the obvious things are things we tend to take for granted and consequently don't do them.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so please feel free to contribute your comments on other steps that you believe are necessary to increase the profile of yard management within the organization.  I sincerely believe that companies that do not recognize the importance of yard management are denying themselves the opportunity to improve their supply chain operations.

Ultimately, yard management has to be something that the organization believes is worth the investment.  I previously wrote a white paper which documents some of the challenges in establishing a return on investment in the yard.  I invite you to download this white paper to further explore this challenging subject.  You can download the white paper here.

RFID and Yard Management

Welcome to C3 TV.  In our first episode Mark Stanton of C3 Solutions discusses some of the current applications of RFID and how RFID can be applied to yard management.  In particular Mark summarizes his discussion by outlining the six steps necessary to evaluate if RFID is right for your yard management solution.

 

 

Six Steps to Evaluate if RFID is right for your Yard Management Solution

1. Ignore the technology.  This is a tough thing to do but the details of a specific technology are the wrong place to start when looking for operational improvements.
2.  Concentrate on defining the problem that you want to fix or the operational process that needs to be improved.  Clearly define what you want to achieve, there by establishing the objectives of your project.
3. Design the solution that fits your objectives. This might result in a requirement for a technology, such as RFID, or strictly a software based solution without any additional hardware requirements.  Finally it may lead to making process changes that don't necessitate an automated system at all.
4. Evaluate all of the different technology options out there such as RFID, GPS, bar coding etc. (the options are endless).  Once your objectives have been properly defined the right solution will become more apparent.
5. Talk with different potential suppliers that don't have a vested interest in promoting a specific hardware solution.  Try and identify suppliers that provide solutions that are "hardware agnostic" and that have a track record that supports their approach.
6. Lastly, talk with companies that have implemented yard management systems.  Establish best practices from companies that have successfully deployed yard management and focus on the real system benefits.

Take a Yard Smart Test Drive

Contact us for a web demonstration to find out how C3's awarding winning Yard Smart system can benefit your operation.

Five Reasons You Should Think about a Dock Scheduling System

Before I begin my first blog entry, I'd like to take a moment and introduce myself. I am a logistics consultant at C3 Solutions. Over the past 10 years, I've been working on numerous yard management and dock scheduling projects in many different industries throughout the world and I'd like to think I have gained some insight into some of the challenges that operators face in the area of Yard Management & Dock Scheduling.

And now, on with the blog.

I am always surprised at how many businesses still don't have a formal scheduling process for their warehouse operations. From my experience, the spreadsheet is still the most widespread tool being used for dock scheduling and therefore, it's not surprising that a lot of companies are not satisfied with their current appointment scheduling processes. Let's face it, a spreadsheet can't give you the visibility and control that today's modern supply chains require. I've compiled what I believe are 5 of the symptoms that, if experienced, should make you seriously look at a Dock Scheduling System.

1. Key Operation people spend more time on the phone than at their actual jobs
Your key employees are often overwhelmed with the amount of calls, faxes and emails that come in on a daily basis to book appointments. A small operation with only 10-15 inbound loads a day can easily require an employees full attention during the day. Why? Lack of efficiency. A clearly defined appointment scheduling process that utilizes a self-serve web portal could help you reduce overall communications and paperwork. Getting even just a few of your larger carriers or vendors on board with the web portal would result in a huge increase in efficiency when planning your dock schedule.

2. You have to pay overtime hours to warehouse workers because of overbooking.
Ever seen this scenario: its 4pm, dock workers have been idle for an hour or more and suddenly, multiple loads come in at the same time. End result: costly overtime hours. Now, as much as a dock scheduling system will not prevent suppliers or carriers from being late, it will provide the needed visibility into the inbound and outbound schedules to pre-emptively reassign dock workers as necessary. There often exists a disconnection between the people scheduling the loads and those receiving them. Knowing ahead of time what is expected to come into your warehouse will allow you to control the flow of goods and make you that much more ready for the unpredictable.

3. You have little visibility of what or even when product is coming into your warehouse
We often hear the word ‘visibility' when discussing supply chain issues. Businesses strive to improve visibility. Integrated purchasing systems enable you to directly send your purchase orders to suppliers, giving them a delivery date or window. What happens next? Nothing until the product arrives in the warehouse and is scanned by dock workers. Obviously this may be a slightly exaggerated statement, but it's not far from reality. A Dock Scheduling System can help you bridge the gap between your purchasing system and your warehouse management system.

4. Your suppliers & carriers pretty much ‘run-the-show'
Are you the kind of business that schedules none or only a part of your loads coming in or out of your warehouses? Well, in doing so, you are pretty much letting the people from whom you purchase goods control your operation. Your business is in a constant reactive mode, unable to plan ahead due to lack of control or visibility. Implementing a firm scheduling process can help you regain that lost control.

5. You can't improve something you can't measure
Driver detention costs in a distribution center can add up quickly. If you don't manage your inbound loads, how can you tell if a carrier is late or if your dock workers took too long unloading the product? The short answer is that you can't. Scheduling your loads using a dock scheduling system not only provides real-time visibility, but also gives you a historical perspective to keep a track record of all suppliers and carriers that enter your site. More visibility = better control.

As with any product, a Dock Scheduling System is not the magic bullet that will eliminate the day to day issues that are encountered in a DC but it is a tool that can help your warehouse run as efficiently as it was designed to.

Interested in Dock Scheduling?

If you would like to get a hands-on demonstration of how a specific Dock Scheduling System can help improve your warehouse operations, please contact us for a web demonstration of our C3 Reservations product.

Yard Management and The Flow-Through Warehouse

Here it is, the first entry in the C3 Yard Blog. Our goal in setting up this blog is to create a forum that focuses on the supply chain challenges that occur outside of the four walls of the distribution center.  We have a lot of interesting perspectives in this area and look forward to the comments and feedback from the supply chain community.

C3 is months away from its 10th anniversary and during the last ten years we have observed many different business drivers that have led companies to require better yard management systems.

The most obvious challenge is gain a better control on costs.  This will be and should be one of the most important elements in justifying the purchase of a yard management solution.

Close behind cost is improving inventory visibility.  Extending the warehouse beyond the four walls has an excellent payback and is crucial for avoiding inventory "black holes".

In addition to these important justifications to make an investment in yard management software, a new form of operation has emerged that is driving the need for yard management and it is referred to as the flow-through warehouse. 

As the name suggests the flow-through facility emphasizes the constant flow of goods from the point it leaves the supplier right up to the time the goods arrive on the shelf.  Yard management is crucial in enabling this type of operation.  Trailers that arrive on site need to be part of a deliberate work flow that ensures that product is not just on site but at the right door at the right time. 

I've included a link that features a brief presentation that Steve Banker of the ARC Advisory Group has done for The Supply Chain Brain that provides a great overview of the different types of flow through warehouses, the benefits of these operations  and the pre-requisites required to start-up a flow through operation. 

You can find the video presentation here. You will need to sign up to Supply Chain Brain to view the video but it is worth it.  If you are not already on their mailing list you should consider joining it - they have a lot of good material on-line.

If you would like to get a more hands on demonstration of how a specific yard management system can facilitate a flow-through operation, please contact us for a web demonstration of our Yard Smart product. 564TRVKNGRDQ